


Under the Mistletoe (My Love Waits For Me)

by rahleeyah



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: On Christmas Eve, a bit of mistletoe sets Jean to thinking about the past, and the future, and leads her on an unexpected journey.
Relationships: Jean Beazley/Lucien Blake
Comments: 15
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was going to save this one until I'd written all of it and post it on Christmas day, but I thought we all needed a little treat.

_24 December 1959_

"I must say, Jean, this is shaping up to be the best Christmas I've had in quite some time," Lucien announced from his armchair. He was smiling wistfully at the Christmas tree, a whiskey glass clutched in his hand, the lights twinkling merrily across his dear, sweet face.

"I'm glad," she told him earnestly. The Christmas before she'd spent a whole fortnight with young Christopher and Ruby, left poor Lucien to his own devices. The Christmas before that she'd not met him yet; old Doctor Blake had been in hospital, clinging stubbornly to life, and all of her letters to his wayward son had gone unanswered, and Mattie had gone home to Melbourne for the holiday, and Jean had been, for the first and she hoped the only time in her life, all alone on Christmas. She could certainly agree that this Christmas was going far better than the previous two; Ruby was a high-strung girl, and not actually Jean's daughter, and she'd found it difficult staying under that roof, where Jean was not the hostess and yet not quite a guest and all of Christopher and Ruby's traditions were foreign to Jean, who had spent so very little time alone with them both. And that Christmas on her own had been dreadful, had left Jean more lonesome than she had ever felt in all her life. This was certainly an improvement; Lucien was in good spirits, and the house was decorated beautifully, and Jean had made enough biscuits to fill every tin in the house, and all was well.

It was not, she thought, her best Christmas ever. There had been other Christmases, in what seemed to her to be another lifetime, full of the joy of children, the love of a family, warm and all-encompassing. No doubt Lucien had his own lovely memories as well, memories of his wife, his child, his mother, those women he had loved so dearly, lost to him by the turn of time and the cruel twist of fate. This Christmas was nothing like those, boisterous, loud, sparkling like the fancy paper he'd used to wrap the gifts under their tree this year. There was something quiet, something almost expectant about this Christmas; Charlie and Mattie had caught a bus to Melbourne together, gone to see their families, and Lucien and Jean were left with only one another, and all the world seemed to be holding its breath.

 _It doesn't seem like Christmas without the children,_ Jean thought, without her boys and Lucien's daughter, without Mattie and Charlie underfoot. Matthew Lawson and Alice Harvey would come round for tea on the day, and that would be perfectly nice, but Christmas without the children felt strangely, painfully quiet to Jean. Without the excitement over presents, without their chatter, without the smiling faces of those she loved, without the comforting rituals of togetherness, what was left to her? Lucien had passed more Christmases alone than Jean had ever done; perhaps he was more accustomed to this nostalgic sorrow, and welcomed it as part of the season. It was still a new experience, for Jean.

Things would be different, this time next year. Ruby was expecting a baby - Jean was even now in the process of knitting a blanket for her first grandchild, filled with a joy that felt strangely like sadness - and with that baby the cycle would start anew. All the old traditions would be revived, for the sake of a child, and it would be for Christopher and Ruby the way it had been for Jean and her Christopher so many years before, the enchantment of the season returned with holy reverence as they taught their little ones everything they had learned when they were small. The tree seemed bigger, the lights brighter, the Christmas mass more moving, viewed through the eyes of a child. Perhaps this time next year Jean might be sitting by a hearth with a baby in her arms, and perhaps her heart would be lighter, then.

But for now, for this night, Jean was alone, with Lucien. Lucien who, while perfectly polite, had begun to make her feel a little uneasy, begun to make her heart flutter in her chest as it had not done for such a terribly long time. She had felt it, now, the brush of his fingertips against her cheek, the heavy warmth of his arms wrapped around her in comfort, the delicious potential that seemed to hang in the air whenever she was alone with him. _Maybe this is the beginning of you being ready;_ she could still hear him whispering those words in her mind when she closed her eyes. _He_ was ready, she knew that now. He would have kissed her that day in the garden, if she'd let him. Would have kissed her months before in the sunroom, if the phone hadn't rung and brought them back to their senses. Sometimes when he looked at her - the way he looked at her now, his eyes warm and serious, his lips slightly parted, his chest still, as if he had stopped breathing altogether - she could almost hear him thinking it, thinking of her, thinking of kissing her, thinking of consigning them both to the flames of madness.

 _He_ might be ready, and perhaps Jean had made a beginning - she had thought, more than once now, of how it might feel to kiss him, and felt only a wild, rushing yearning at the idea of it, rather than the shame she had expected - but she was not _there_. Not yet. To kiss him, to hold him, to open her heart to him - as she longed for, as he longed for - would be to take an impossible risk. To risk her future, her stability, her home, her reputation, to risk everything she was and everything she had for a man known for his caprice, a man whose mood shifted with the winds, a man who oftentimes forgot everyone and everything that was not himself. He could be dear, could be generous, could be tender, when he wanted to be, when the moment was right, but Jean was not certain, not yet, that he could be those things for long enough to make this risk one worth taking. What would become of her, when something brighter came along? What would become of her, should he grow tired of her? How deeply would it bite if she risked her heart on love for the first time in nearly two decades, and only to find that he didn't want her, after all, and all her hopes had turned to bitter disappointment? Perhaps, she thought, sometimes the potential of a thing was sweeter than the thing itself. Perhaps his kiss was better imagined, and not felt.

"Well," he said into the strange, introspective silence that had sprung up between them. "It's late. I think I'd best be off to bed."

He rose slowly to his feet and so too did Jean; he was the master of the house, and she was not in the habit of lingering downstairs after he'd gone to bed. If he was ready to sleep, she would follow, up the stairs and off to her own bed. Carefully she tucked her knitting in its basket, switched off the lamp, and moved to follow Lucien out of the parlor.

"I'll make us a nice breakfast," she told him as she went. His back was to her, but he paused as she drew near, turning to smile at her softly.

"Bubble and squeak?" he asked hopefully. He did so look like a little boy, just then, hopeful for a treat, and she did so want to give it to him, to give him happy memories, and joy, to make up for all the years of heartbreak he had endured.

"If you like," she told him, smiling. "Scones, too, I think."

"With jam and cream?"

Jean laughed at him; she couldn't help it. How eager he could be, how easy to please. When he'd first come to her his eyes had been wild and his belly underfed, but he had grown happy and satisfied under her gentle care, and she was glad of it.

"Oh, I think we must," she said.

There was that smile of his, that smile that she sometimes thought he saved just for her, warm and softer than any look she'd ever seen him direct at anyone else. They were alone, on Christmas Eve, and he was quite the handsomest man she'd ever met, with quite the softest heart, and he was smiling, and the earth seemed to shift beneath Jean's feet as she looked at him.

 _You could,_ a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. _All alone, with no one to see, you could -_

"Good night, Lucien," she told him, her smile fading somewhat as she made to step by him, to walk out into the corridor, up to her bed. She could, but she wouldn't; caution must win the day, for she had learned the lessons of a reckless youth through grief and suffering, and could not bear such pain a second time.

She had no sooner reached the threshold of the parlor, however, than his hand reached for her, caught her arm gently, stopping her in her tracks. Before Jean could ask what on earth he was doing he pointed just above her head, and she lifted her chin, and looked, wondering what he had seen, what had caused him to reach out for her. The breath left her lungs as she realized what was afoot; hung there on the lentil of the doorway was a bright, merry sprig of mistletoe.

 _That_ was why he had stopped her. That was why he stepped up close, now, his hand still resting on her arm, his breathing slow, his eyes wide with longing. _Oh,_ his eyes; he'd looked at her just like this, that day in the sunroom, serious and yearning, his gaze dropping to her lips, his own lips parted, hopeful, ready. Every man on the verge of a kiss shared a certain _look,_ Jean thought; she'd discovered it when she was young, and never forgotten it. A sort of determination, a sort of recklessness, a sort of want that dispelled all rational thought, and left behind it only need. He was _close,_ so very close now, and he was so tall, and so strong, and so handsome, and touching her so gently, and _you could, you know,_ her heart whispered. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to smile at him, to lift her chin and let him have her. How marvelous that would feel, she thought, to be _wanted_ , to reach out with both hands for the love that had been missing from her life for so long now, the love that stood just within her reach, the love her heart clamored for.

It would be _easy,_ in the moment, but the consequences of it would be impossible to bear. She was not ready, to take this risk. Too many times in the past risk had turned her life to ashes in her hands, and no matter what she might have longed for, no matter how beautiful it might have seemed in the moment, she feared that this time, too, she would take a gamble, and she would lose. _Better not to play at all,_ the words her father had spoken to her once, _than to lose it all on one bad hand._

"Good night, Lucien," she whispered sadly, and slipped away from him before she could think better of it, her steps slow and heavy as she pulled herself away from him. Part of her longed to look back, to see if he had hung his head in sorrow, or if he was watching her with eyes full of questions, but she could not bear to see her own disappointment written on his sweet face, and so she did not look.

She just went, up the stairs, stopped off in the loo for a moment and then barricaded herself in her bedroom. Her mind was full of memories as she changed into her pajamas, let down her hair, crawled beneath her blankets. Christmas Eve as a child, falling asleep with her nose pressed to the window, waiting for gifts that would never come; Christmas Eve as a woman, wrapped up tight in her husband's arms, rocking against him and laughing, trying to keep their voices soft, trying not to wake their sleeping children; Christmas Eve as a widow, with only old Doctor Blake for company; Christmas Eve now, lonesome and yearning, with a handsome man downstairs she dared not touch. What would the next Christmas Eve hold, and the next? What would become of her, if she were not ever ready for his kiss, his wild, reckless heart? What would become of her if she _was?_ Too many questions, too many memories, and too few answers; her mind churned in and around itself like a pit of wrangling snakes until at last her eyes closed, and sleep claimed her.


	2. Chapter 2

A strange, bluish light woke Jean in the still of the night; her eyes fluttered open and for a moment she stared at the ceiling, bemused and barely conscious, her mind having not yet fully re-entered the land of the living. If she had been dreaming she could not recall it; perhaps, she thought, she'd not yet slept long enough to fall through the shadows into the vast yawning chasm of memories that threatened to claim her before she drifted off. That light continued, unwavering, the brightness and the shade of lightning, but steady, constant, illuminating every object in her bedroom with an undeniable glow. Troubled, wondering what on earth could have caused such a strange phenomenon - the world beyond her bedroom window was black, still - she sat up, intending to roll out of bed and investigate, but she was waylaid almost at once by the sudden revelation of the source of that bright light, and a scream lodged itself in the back of her throat, though she was too frightened to find the breath to give it voice.

There, at the end of the bed, stood a woman clothed in white. Her dress was fine, silk, Jean thought, cut in a fashion Jean had not seen since she was a girl, overlaid with lace and pearls, and the necklace the woman wore might have been diamonds. Her hair was dark, black as night, emphasizing the paleness of her skin, the blinding witness of her dress, falling in a mass of heavy curls across one of her perfect shoulders. The woman's face was ethereal, terrible in her beauty, and Jean was certain she had never seen this creature before, and transfixed at the sight of her, flummoxed as to how the stranger had come to be in her bedroom.

For a moment they regarded one another in silence, Jean and that vision in white. The woman did not speak, but she did smile, softly, and it was that smile, spreading warmly across her face, that tugged at Jean's memory. It was, she realized, a smile that looked rather like Lucien's.

"Hello," Jean said anxiously, quietly. She was still sitting upright in her bed, fingers twisting against the blankets as she tried to work out what the bloody hell she ought to do.

The woman did not answer, and Jean began to suspect then that she was not awake at all. _It's only a dream,_ she told herself, but if it was a dream why then did she feel cold, without the blankets to warm her shoulders? Why then did her fear feel so sharp, why did the scene not flutter and dissolve and shift into something else, elusive as a wisp of smoke, the way dreams so often were?

"I know your face," Jean ventured then. "You're Genevieve Blake, aren't you?"

The woman nodded, pleasure in her smile, as if she were delighted that Jean had cottoned on so quickly.

"This is a dream," Jean murmured to herself. She did not believe in ghosts, but even if Mrs. Blake still walked the halls of her mortal home in the still of the night Jean could not believe it would have taken this long for her to make herself known. No, none of it could be real, and Jean relaxed slightly.

Mrs. Blake did not share her relief. Her smile faded, a troubled expression taking its place. In three quick strides she crossed the room to Jean's bedside; Jean withdrew reflexively as the apparition of Genevieve Blake approached, thinking of the rosary in her bedside drawer, wondering if she could reach for it before Genevieve stopped her, wondering if it would make any difference at all. But the vision of Mrs. Blake did not try to hurt her, did not fall upon her in a terrible rage; instead Genevieve stopped by the bedside, and held out her hand.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Blake," Jean said, eyeing that pale hand warily. It _looked_ substantial enough, flesh and bone the same as Jean's own hand, though the skin was pale as ivory. "Whatever it is I can't help you. I'd best be getting back to sleep."

The expression on Mrs. Blake's face grew sharp, and she snapped her fingers impatiently.

 _The cheek!_ Jean thought crossly. Dead or not, no one _ever_ dealt with Jean Beazley so callously. Of course, Mrs. Blake had been a woman from a different time, wealthy and much accustomed to getting her own way; perhaps she was like that with everyone. She was still waiting, hand outstretched, for Jean, and Jean's heart sank; she could not go back to sleep like this, with an angry ghost standing over her, and she did not want to risk unleashing the wrath of the undead on her person. Dream or not, Mrs. Blake had come to her, and Jean knew in her heart that the vision would not leave her until Jean had done as she'd been asked.

Nerves left her hand unsteady as she reached out, accepted the hand Genevieve had offered her, and the ghost smiled, pleased, as their palms touched. Mrs. Blake's hand was warm, and solid, but the touch of it sent a chill through Jean. No dream had ever, could ever feel so real as this; she was not sleeping at all, she was certain of that now.

Gently Genevieve drew Jean to her feet, holding tight to her hand, and began to lead her out of the room.

"Wait a moment, please," Jean said as politely as she could. "Won't you tell me where we're going?"

Mrs. Blake shook her head, and tugged Jean towards the door.

"Can I at least put on my robe? I'm not in the habit of wandering around in my pajamas."

Jean was covered from head to foot in faded pink satin, her arms bare below her elbows, her feet bare on the carpet. A robe would have allowed her some modesty, and some warmth, and perhaps a moment to catch her breath, but Genevieve did not stop; she only laughed, amused by Jean's plea, and led her out of the bedroom and into the corridor. The house was all in darkness, but Mrs. Blake knew the way, and Jean followed behind her, bemused, all the way to the bottom of the stairs.

There Jean drew up short, for she found something rather extraordinary. The stairs did not open into the foyer, the way they did in waking life; instead at the foot of the stairs there stood a heavy wooden door, no light seeping out from behind it.

 _A dream,_ she told herself, though no dream had ever frightened her this much, been this cold or this intriguing. Genevieve released her hand and gave her a gentle nudge towards the door, her expression encouraging.

"You want me to go through it?" Jean asked. What Jean wanted was to turn on her heel and flee up the stairs, back to the warmth and safety of her bed. Well, mostly that was what she wanted. A small, curious piece of her heart was desperate to know where that door had come from, and what lay behind it. She had always possessed an inquisitive spirit, though it had laid her low more than once in the past.

Mrs. Blake was insistent, and the door was calling to her, and so Jean drew in one very deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched right up to it. The door swung open the instant Jean's hand touched the knob, and she stepped through it into darkness.

Genevieve was with her; Jean could sense the warmth of the woman at her back. She took a tentative step forward into the blackness, and suddenly the shadows all around her shattered, glistening, fell away like Lucien's flecks of gold leaf, leaving behind them an unexpected scene that brought tears to her eyes.

She knew this room; she would know it anywhere. The heavy, wood-paneled walls, the threadbare rug beneath her feet, the scratch of it a familiar, welcome sensation against her toes. The gauzy white curtains Jean had sewn herself fluttering around the open window, the old iron bed frame, the faded blue quilt with patterns of flowers picked out neatly across it. Christopher's boots standing straight as soldiers by the doorway, her stockings hanging over the mirror by the dressing table, the glass stained with a faint patina of age.

"This was our room," she whispered, and Genevieve smiled sadly, but she had no sooner spoken than the shapes in the bed - and the sounds coming from it - resolved themselves more clearly, and Jean's cheeks promptly flushed pink.

There, a young man's bare back, the quilt riding low over his hips, his hair a riot of dark curls. Beneath him a girl, mostly hidden from view by his bulk, her hands pressed hard to his back, her hair dark as his, though stick-straight where it spilled across the pillowcases. Her nails were short and stubby and unpainted; she never had the money for such a luxury as polish, not in those days. They were rocking together, the old iron bed creaking recklessly beneath them, the sound of muffled grunts and whispered endearments almost too soft to be heard.

It was the strangest, most terrible thing Jean had ever seen in all her life. She could almost feel her heart shattering in her chest, stabbing at her like a thousand tiny knives. This place was no more than a memory to her now, but _oh,_ what a memory it was, a memory of love, and peace, and belonging, desperately fighting for every second of life. And yet Jean was not lying in that bed, as she was in her own memories; she was outside herself, watching, while her husband made love to her in a moment that had ended decades before, and yet felt as real to her now as if she had indeed stepped into that room.

"Christopher," she whispered brokenly, but it seemed the shapes on the bed did not hear her, or take note of her presence at all; they were too lost in one another.

"They can't see me, can they?" she asked, and beside her Mrs. Blake shook her head sadly.

So Jean watched, for she did not know what else to do. Watched, and listened, remembering him, her beautiful young man, lost to her so soon, Christopher who would live in her memory for all her days, and yet never age past thirty. Remembering _her_ , the girl she had been, then, when she loved him, whole and entire, and nothing in the world mattered to her, save for him. What Jean would give, to slide back into this moment, to wrap her arms around him, to hold him close, feel him with her once more, but she was nearly fifty, now, and not the lovely young thing he'd known, and grief welled up so strongly within her that her knees very nearly gave way beneath her.

From the timbre of his groans she knew he was getting close, watched as the younger, more reckless version of herself clung to him, encouraged him, until at last he fell apart in her arms, and collapsed atop her, laughing. They held onto one another for a long moment, Jean's hands running through his hair, over his back, but eventually he rolled away from her, rummaging in his bedside table for a cigarette and a box of matches while the younger Jean sighed and stretched, catlike and contended.

Jean knew she ought to be embarrassed, knowing that Genevieve Blake was watching her like this, her breasts bare, her face flushed from sex, her hair a wild tangle, but that girl was not Jean, not any more. She was only a memory of a beauty that once had been. Beside her Christopher lit his cigarette, took one long puff and then offered it to his wife, and she took it gladly. Jean couldn't abide cigarettes these days, not because she did not care for them, but because they reminded her of moments like this one, reminded her of the husband she had lost, and the youth and the hope that had been lost with him.

"They're still asleep, I think," Christopher said, and young Jean laughed, passing the cigarette back to him before cuddling in close to his side. He draped his free arm around her and the pair of them rested for a moment, at peace and happy with one another.

"A Christmas miracle," she said dryly.

So it was Christmas here, too, in the past as it was in the present. Jean thought she could recall this one; they had made love every Christmas morning, but this one seemed special, somehow, though she could not yet place it in the timeline of her own life.

"I only wish we had more presents for them to open," Christopher sighed, and then Jean remembered. It was the last Christmas before he'd left for the war. It was the last Christmas they'd ever spent together, the last Christmas she'd woken to her husband's hands gentle on her skin, and welcomed him eagerly. The farm had been struggling, and Christopher had spent so many sleepless night worrying over their finances, and he'd been cross for weeks about not being able to buy proper presents for the boys.

"It doesn't matter, sweetheart," young Jean told him, kissing his shoulder before stealing the cigarette for herself. "Years from now they won't remember what presents they got, or what food they ate. All they'll remember is the love."

"I do love you, Jeannie, you know that, don't you?" Christopher said.

"You'd better," she answered, grinning. His hand slid around her side, tickling her, making her giggle, until he caught her breast in her palm, and her laughter turned into a sigh.

"Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest bastard alive," he told her. "I've got you, and the boys, and this house. It's...you're all I ever wanted, Jeannie."

 _He was so young,_ Jean thought. How could he have never longed for more, when he had only known so little of the world? She saw the flicker of doubt in her younger self's eyes, a doubt Christopher never saw at all. Even then Jean had wanted more; she'd wanted the whole world, and everything in it, and felt shame every day of her life for dreaming of something better. She felt shame now, knowing how precious a gift she'd been given, her husband, her boys, her home full of love, wishing she'd treasured it more then, before all of it had been stripped away from her, left her cold and lonesome.

"Merry Christmas, my love," young Jean said, avoiding her own feelings the way she always did, passing the cigarette back to him and then laying her head down on his chest.

"Merry Christmas, my Jean," he whispered.

Jean knew how the rest of the scene went; the cigarette had almost burned out between Christopher's fingers. He'd stub it out, and they'd clean themselves up, laughing between hastily stolen kisses, go and wake the boys. Jean would make a pot of coffee, and she and Christopher would sip it while Jack and young Christopher tore through the wrapping paper on their meager pile of presents. An orange, a little toy, and one pair of shoes apiece, and the boys held those gifts in their hands as if they were more costly than gold, and came afterwards to settle on the sofa between their parents, a pile of warm bodies and gentle smiles, and Christopher would catch her eye over the boys' heads and whisper _I love you._ She wanted to see it, all of it, wanted to see her boys small enough to sit on her lap once more, their heads unbowed by the grief of life, but Mrs. Blake had other plans. She caught hold of Jean's hand once more and began to lead her back towards the door.

"Please," Jean whispered, watching her younger self rise from the bed, tears gathering in her eyes. "Please let me stay, let me stay here."

It was not lost on her that she was not only asking for this moment, this one scene of familial content. What Jean's heart longed for, more than anything else, was to return to the way things had been, to live once more surrounded by the heat of love. What difference did it make, if her belly was empty, if her dress was worn thin and faded, if there was no nail polish on her dressing table, so long as she had love? Everything she had, she'd trade to find this love again.

But the moment was long past, and shadows were falling, and Mrs. Blake would not be deterred. Jean had no choice but to follow her once more through the door.


	3. Chapter 3

As she stepped through the doorway Jean did not find the stairs and the comforting vision of home waiting for her on the other side, as she had expected, but nor did she find darkness, as she had discovered the last time she'd walked through the doorway. Instead she was plunged into a bright, brilliant light, and she closed her eyes tight against it, tears sticking her lashes together. Her heart was aching, still; she spun on her heel, blind and devastated, her hands reaching for the door, searching for some way back to the past, to the vision of that life she had loved so dearly, but her hands met no resistance. Hesitantly she opened her eyes, blinking away her tears and the stunning light, and found that the door had vanished; she was standing beside Genevieve in an open field, beneath a blazing midday sun.

"Please," Jean whispered to the silent spirit standing sentinel beside her. "Please, take me back."

If only she could go _back;_ perhaps her family would not notice her presence, but she would be able to see them, as they had been, to watch love unfolding all around her, to soak in the warmth of those memories, rather than be wounded by them, but Genevieve just shook her head. It wasn't _fair,_ Jean thought, that she should be granted such a vision and yet not be able to enjoy it; what was the purpose of their jaunt to her past in any case, if they only stayed for a moment and saw nothing of consequence?

"I don't understand," Jean said raggedly, "and I don't want to see any more. I just want to go home. Please," she added. No matter how devastated she might have been a part of her still recalled that she was completely at Mrs. Blake's mercy, and she did not want to upset her captor unnecessarily.

Mrs. Blake's answering smile was enigmatic; Jean could not quite understand what it was the woman was trying to tell her, but there was an air of expectation about her, as if they had come to this field for a purpose, and that purpose would soon be revealed. A distant sound like the slamming of a car door seemed to echo off on the distance, and Mrs. Blake jumped into a action like a dog who'd caught a scent, marching off across the grass and taking Jean with her. As they walked the scene resolved itself; they were not in a field at all, Jean realized, but winding through the graveyard beside Sacred Heart. Jean knew this place well, but she could not reckon why Mrs. Blake had brought her here - not to mention _how._ Jean's rational mind was working overtime ignoring all those questions, about how Mrs. Blake had come to be here, how she could touch Jean as if she were real, how they had traveled to the past and how they had come to be in the graveyard. It was too much for her to puzzle through all at once, and compounded by the grief of the vision they'd just retreated from altogether Jean feared she was too fragile to face the answers in any case.

She could just make out the shape of a few cars parked at the edge of the graveyard, and from what little Jean could see of the look of the cars and the look of the church it seemed to her they were no longer in pre-war Ballarat, but instead in a time closer to the one Jean knew. Jean did not often venture this deeply into the graveyard - Christopher's marker was at the edge of the field closest to the church, and she did not visit her parents much, these days - and so the stones around her were unfamiliar, but she and Mrs. Blake turned a corner and she found a most familiar sight indeed.

It was Lucien, dressed in the same grey suit he'd been wearing when Jean last saw him, a bundle of flowers clutched in his hands. He marched purposefully towards them but took no more note of them than Jean's past self and Christopher had done; he could not see them, could not hear them. That was a strange feeling, seeing Lucien so close to hand and yet paying her no mind, and Jean liked it not one bit. She rather thought Mrs. Blake didn't care for it, either; Genevieve's expression was pained as she led Jean along behind Lucien, and then the three of them came to a stop in front of one of the gravestones.

"Hello, mum," Lucien said quietly as he laid the flowers down on top of the stone and brushed a few errant leaves away from it.

 _Oh, Lucien._ Jean's tender heart grieved for him, to think of him visiting the mother he'd lost when he was just a child, the mother he had so adored, the mother who stood close to him now, though he didn't know it.

"It's Christmas Eve, today," he said, "and I thought I ought to bring you something."

If it was Christmas Eve, and Lucien was in Ballarat wearing that same grey suit, Jean supposed she must have found herself back in the same day she'd left, albeit several hours earlier, or perhaps Christmas just the year before, while Jean had been away. She shifted somewhat uneasily on her feet; if this was the present day, Lucien hadn't told her that he'd visited his mother's grave, and she suspected he would not appreciate this breach of his privacy. Then again, she supposed, he would likely be so intrigued by the forces that had brought her here he might forget the invasion entirely.

"I often wish that I could speak to you," he said, and with a furtive glance to make sure no one was watching he hitched up his trouser legs and plopped down on the grass beside Genevieve's headstone.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that no matter how old or wise a man might grow, he will always need the counsel of his mother. God knows there have been so many times over the years when I could have used your help. I've made such a mess of so many things. Of everything, really. And you...you always handled things so beautifully."

"Oh, I know," he added hastily, "there was so much about you I didn't know. There's a lad called Charlie, here in the town, he just moved into our spare room. He's a good lad, it's nice to have him with us. We had to shift a lot of dad's things to make space for him, and I found...oh, I found all sorts of things. I never knew that you were allergic to dogs, or that you had diabetes. Maybe you were trying to protect me, to give me a happy childhood. I did have a happy childhood, you know. Until we lost you."

 _Our_ and _us_ and _we;_ Lucien had spoken of his home as if it did not belong to him alone, casually including Mattie and Jean in his brief description of Charlie's arrival. It touched Jean's heart, to know that when he thought of _home_ he thought of _them,_ too, that he was not as focused on himself as he so often seemed to be. But his words wounded her, too, to hear him say how happy he had been before his mother's death, to know how terribly sad he had become after.

"Agnes is well, I thought you'd like to know that. And your painting of her is still in the house, the Tynemans will never get their hands on it. I hope that would please you."

Genevieve was smiling, Jean saw, as she listened to her son's words, but there was a world of sorrow in her gaze. And why shouldn't there be, Jean thought; she was a mother herself, and could think of no fate crueler than to be taken from her children too soon, to leave them all alone for forty years, lonesome and confused. If Jean had been in her place, watching her own son, unable to answer him, unable to touch him, she was certain she would be broken by the grief of it.

"Selfishly," he said, "I've come to ask you a question. Oh, I know you can't answer me, not really, but I've no one else to ask, and if I don't get it out I'm afraid it might eat me alive."

Jean held her breath, waiting; what could weigh so heavily upon his heart that he could not seek counsel from the living, from Matthew or Alice or Jean herself, and was forced instead to entreat the dead for answers?

"There's a woman, you see," he said, and Jean twisted her hands together anxiously, fearing she knew what woman he meant, fearing she didn't. "Her name is Jean," he said, and she sighed, the breath she'd been holding leaving her all at once. "And she is...oh, she's just lovely. You'd like her. Well," he laughed, "perhaps you two wouldn't quite see eye to eye, but still. She's kind, and she's clever, and she's beautiful. She...she makes everything make sense. I hardly know who I'd be without her now, strange as it is to say." He plucked absently at the grass, his gaze focused on his toes, his expression almost bashful, as if he knew his mother could hear him after all. "All the noise, all the confusion, all the questions, everything just...stops, when I'm with her. When I was young I thought that love was big and loud, like a fireworks show, or a bomb, I suppose. But now I think that love is quiet, and steady. I think that love is what makes the noise of this life into a song."

What a dear man he was; the tears had begun to flow once more down Jean's cheeks, and as they listened Genevieve reached out, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as if in comfort. If only he could have said those things to _her,_ and not to his mother's stone; if only she'd _known_ he felt this way, that his heart longed for her so desperately, not for a moment's pleasure but for _her_ , perhaps...perhaps…

Then again, perhaps not, for the memory of Christopher's hands was strong in her mind, and the bite of fear was stronger still. Losing one love had nearly broken her; to risk another might be more than she could bear.

"The problem, as it were," he said, "is that I don't think I'm what she wants, somehow. She was married once, lost her husband in the war same as I lost Mei Lin. And she loves him still. It's...oh, I don't know the word. Knowing that she loved him that much, that she grieves for him still when Mei Lin is no more than a memory to me, knowing that she can feel so passionately but she's spent all her passion on a ghost...it isn't...I wish that I could take even a piece of that love for myself. I told you it was selfish, didn't I? She'll not have me, I don't think. I make too much of a mess, and I can't hold a candle to the man she remembers. That's a blow to the ego, isn't it, to think she loves a ghost more than she'll ever love me? Maybe I need taking down a peg or too. Maybe she'll teach me humility."

 _Is that really what he thinks?_ Jean asked herself as she looked at him now, this man so imposing, so intimidating in life, sitting on the grass, telling his mother how he would never be good enough for Jean. Did he really think she wouldn't love him? Could she? _Did_ she? Would she have to let Christopher go before she could ever love Lucien?

 _Better not to play at all,_ the words her father had spoken to her once, _than to lose it all on one bad hand._ What if she took this risk with Lucien, and found only sorrow? Would whatever they found together be a sweet thing, or would it fade, and leave her lonesome once again? Her life was not so very bad, as it was; she was content. Given the choice between the contentment she had, and a joy that might be only fleeting, which ought she to choose?

"I said I had a question, and I suppose it's this. Ought I to risk it? She's my housekeeper; if I tell her...how I feel, what I want, and she doesn't want the same, I'm sure she'll look for employment elsewhere. I don't want her to lose her home, and her livelihood, because of my foolishness. She's spent more time living in that house than I have, it wouldn't seem right to force her out. But if I don't...bugger it. Sorry. You see my dilemma?"

"I want her, you see, rather a lot. I want...I want so many things. And I think maybe, maybe she might want something, too. But I don't _know,_ and I don't want to hurt her. The last thing I'd ever want is to hurt her. I've hurt so many people…"

He lost his voice, hung his head in defeat, and Jean felt her heart breaking, right along with his. For so long she had been worried, wondering whether she was imagining the force of gravity that seemed to pull between them, imagining the look in his eyes, wondering whether what he felt for her was worth the risk. And all this time he'd been wondering the same, afraid to show his hand lest he wound her. _What a pair we make!_ She thought. But now she knew, knew for a certainty, what it was he wanted, and she could...couldn't she? He spoke of love, and want, but what of a life? What would their future even look like, should she accept him now? She could hardly even imagine it, what might become of her should she take his hand.

"I suppose," he said, "I ought to give it one last chance. Third time's the charm, eh? There was this day in the sunroom, you see, and in the garden, once, when I thought...well. At any rate. There's a bit of mistletoe in the parlor, and Christmas is a time for love, is it not? Maybe...maybe this is our last chance. And if she'll not have me now, then I'll know."

 _Oh, no,_ Jean realized with dawning horror. The moment she'd shared with Lucien in the parlor later that evening had apparently not been a cruel twist of fate, as she'd thought, but rather one last overture from him, hoping to see whether she was interested in him at all. And she'd turned him down! What he must be thinking now - or then, or tonight, or whenever, it was all a bit muddled in her mind. Had he turned his heart against her entirely? Had she lost her last best chance to tell him that she did care for him, that she was only afraid? If she'd only _known,_ perhaps she would have made a different choice. Perhaps she might have -

"It's terribly lonely," Lucien said softly, "This Christmas business. My daughter's on the other side of the world, and our lodgers have gone home, and Jean is...she's so lovely. We could have a proper Christmas, I think, just her and I together, but she's been keeping her distance. I've been rattling around that house all day, thinking of you, and wishing...oh, I wish for so many things."

Beside her Genevieve sighed once, softly, and then went to her son, resting her hand gently atop his head as he stared at his shoes, lost in his own grief. The sight of them together, Genevieve reaching for him, wanting to comfort him even from beyond the grave, and Lucien lost in sadness, never knowing she was there at all, sent silent tears coursing down Jean's cheeks. It wasn't _fair,_ she thought, that Genevieve had been taken from her son, that poor Lucien didn't know just how loved he was. Yes, he made a mess of things, sometimes, but Jean was rather adept at cleaning up mess, and he was so wonderful, really, brave and tender and kind, and when he smiled...she'd do anything, to see that smile of his.

 _Maybe he's right,_ she thought, looking at the pair of them, mother and son, separated by the veil of death. _Maybe love is the quiet._ With Christopher love had been a whirlwind, reckless and wild, but it had settled, after, and it was the quiet Jean remembered most. So, too, it was the quiet moments with Lucien that most affected her; that day in the sunroom, his arms wrapped tight around her, that day in the garden with her hand wrapped in his, but more than that, it was a quiet cup of tea in the morning, his warmth beside her as she washed the dishes and he dried them, gentle conversation and a warm, tender smile. But _oh,_ he could be loud, too, like a bull in a china shop, rushing around town, always causing trouble, losing sight of what was in front of him. Could the quiet moments drown out all that noise?

For so long Jean had been clinging to her past, certain that she had had her love, and lost him, and would never find his like again. The vision Genevieve had showed her only reminded her of how much she treasured that love. Could a new love ever be as _good,_ as warm and all encompassing, as the old? Could Lucien could love her, love her truly, in the way that she needed? Could she be the one to make him happy, and banish the sorrow that haunted his steps? Or would he grow tired of her, Jean who was not as reckless as he, Jean who held him back when he longed to rush forward, Jean who did not share his courage? It was all so dreadfully confusing, she hardly knew which way was up.

Lucien began to rise slowly to his feet, and Genevieve left him there, walked back to Jean and once more caught hold of her hand.

"Can we go home now, please?" Jean asked her plaintively. She had seen so much, learned so much on this night, her heart was aching, and her bed was calling to her. If only she could crawl beneath the blankets and sleep this night, perhaps everything would make more sense in the morning. She did not want to be here, in the thrall of this ghost, this figment of Lucien's past, pulled through the world by some force of fate she did not understand. She wanted to return to where the world made sense; she wanted to go _home._

Mrs. Blake turned them, and as they began to walk across the grass that same door appeared, and this time Jean approached it gratefully, hoping that their strange journey was at an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: more soon!


	4. Chapter 4

Jean stepped through the doorway eagerly, hopeful that now that Mrs. Blake had done her work in showing Jean the memory of love, and the potential for love close at hand, Jean might at last be allowed to rest, but the doorway led her instead to a small sitting room she'd never seen before.

Furious and heartsick she spun on her heel, and found the doorway gone, Mrs. Blake watching her with sorrow in her eyes.

"I want to go home," Jean told her crossly. "I've seen enough. I understand now, Mrs. Blake, I do. Lucien asked for your help. He told you what he had planned, and when I didn't...when I wouldn't let him kiss me, you decided to do something about it, yes? I appreciate your assistance, and you've given me a great deal to think about, but I really must insist you take me home."

Mrs. Blake only frowned, and pointed imperiously to the room at Jean's back. Apparently Genevieve felt there was more yet for Jean to see, but Jean couldn't thank her for this, for taking her away from her life and refusing to let her go home. After everything she'd seen and heard this night Jean's head was spinning, and she wasn't sure she was ready to face any further heartbreak. But looking at Mrs. Blake was painful, too; Lucien's words at the graveside were still echoing in Jean's mind, and the implications of them left her reeling. Had Genevieve really heard her son's desperate plea? Had she hovered in the air of the parlor that night, hopeful for him as he was hopeful for himself, wanting to see how it all unfolded? Was she cross with Jean, for turning down his final overture, though Jean had never known it was the last at all? And what did Genevieve Blake know, anyhow, Jean thought crossly; she knew what Lucien had told her, but what could she know of Jean's heart, of her fears and her doubts? How _dare_ she presume to know better than Jean what Jean herself needed; Genevieve wasn't even alive!

No human form appeared in the sitting room, as they had done in her previous visions, and so Jean began to pace slowly through the room, searching for some evidence as to why Mrs. Blake had brought her here. The sitting room boasted one small sofa and armchair, a matching set that had seen better days. There were a few prints hung on the wall, reproductions of paintings of flowers, inexpensive and unremarkable. One low bookshelf, half-filled, one old wireless, and no television. There was a white blanket thrown over the sofa that looked as if it had been knitted by hand. A newspaper on the sidetable indicated that it had been published in Adelaide, and bore the date _24 December 1964,_ and so Jean supposed she had been transported to the future, though she could not say how. And why Adelaide? Christopher's family lived there in Jean's own time; were they still there five years later? It seemed unlikely; the army often moved its soldiers round, and she doubted he could have stayed in any one place for such a long time.

There was precious little of any use in the sitting room, and so Jean went next to one of the two doors leading out from that place. She swung it wide, and found herself facing a corridor that led to a stairwell, and other doors just like this one. One door at the end of the hall said _lavatory._ She supposed she must have been in some sort of boarding house, then; retreating back to the sitting room where she'd begun, she raced to the window and peered out. It was night, beyond the window, but she could tell she was on the second story of the building, and she could see a city street, and other nondescript buildings just like this one. There was another door in the sitting room, and so Jean went there next, opened it cautiously, her heart full of questions, Mrs. Blake close behind her.

She found herself in a bedroom, as sparsely decorated as the sitting room had been. Some effort had been taken to make the place cheery; the furniture, while old and nondescript, all matched, and there were more floral prints hanging on the walls. The curtains were neat and soft, and there was a white coverlet on the bed. Jean did not explore this room as she had the sitting room, however, for she was pulled up short by the sight of a body lying on the bed.

 _Her_ body. It was Jean herself, alone in that pitiful bedroom on Christmas Eve, her hair gone mostly grey, the lines on her face more pronounced. A book lay beside her on the bed, untouched; the strange, sorrowful future Jean was curled on her side, weeping.

"I don't understand," Jean said softly to Mrs. Blake. "What is this place?"

She did not expect an answer; Mrs. Blake had not spoken to her once, and Jean had begun to suspect she never would. But Jean had to ask; she had to know how she had come to be in this terrible place, with nothing but two small rooms to call her own, and no love to fill them. Why was she in Adelaide? Why was she weeping? And where was her family? Five years into the future, Christopher might well have had a second child, and surely Jack would have settled down by then. What cause could she have had for such sorrow?

Mrs. Blake did not speak, and so Jean was left to stare at this vision of herself, lonesome and cold on Christmas. Fear simmered low in her belly; she had never dreamed of living in such a place as this. Even when she'd been no more than a poor farmer's wife, in perilous financial circumstances, she'd had a _home,_ a kitchen of her own, green grass beneath her feet. She'd been proud of what little she had, and found beauty in it. There was no beauty in this, living cheek-by-jowl with strangers, no garden of her own, her home so modest as to be almost pitiful. It _was_ pitiful, she realized, not just because the furnishings were poor, but because it was so dreadfully lonesome.

How long she stood there, watching herself weep, she could not say; she wanted to go and sit on the bed, to take her own hand, to ask herself how she had come to be in this place, to offer her some piece of hope, but this Jean did not see her, no more than her past self had done, and there was no way for Jean to reach herself. Eventually, though, Mrs. Blake took her hand, and Jean accepted it readily, eager to be free of this troubling vision, eager for answers. They stepped through the doorway together, but did not emerge into the sitting room; this time they were once again in the graveyard at Sacred Heart, standing by Genevieve's stone, though Lucien was nowhere in sight and the sky above was grey, not cheerful and bright as it had been in 1959.

"Please," Jean said to Genevieve, desperate now. How long was this meant to go on? How much more would she see? And why would Genevieve not speak? Perhaps she couldn't, Jean thought; perhaps there were limits to what she could do, though she had done so very much already it seemed ludicrous that she would not be granted the ability to speak. "Please, tell me, what this means."

Genevieve pointed in silence to the gravestone, and Jean looked, and the breath caught in her throat, for another stone stood beside it now, a stone that had not been there when last she'd stood upon that patch of earth.

 _Lucien Radcliffe Blake,_ it read. _22 March 1909 - 17 April 1962. May he find in death the answers he sought in life._

"No," Jean whispered, horror filling her until there was no space left for breath, or thought. "No, it can't be."

It _couldn't_ be. Lucien, dead, not three full years after that Christmas Eve they'd shared in the sitting room. Lucien, dead, and Jean alone in Adelaide; how could this tragedy have come to pass? Was this what the future held in store for them, nothing but grief and misery?

Choking on a new wave of tears Jean reached for the stone, and as her fingers touched it a window in her mind seemed to open, flinging her through time and space, a film reel playing on the backs of her eyelids, showing all that she had not understood. Showing her how after she declined his kiss, Lucien retreated into himself. Showing her how young Christopher had asked his mother to come to Adelaide to help with his new baby, and how, believing there was nothing for her in Ballarat, Jean had gone. How she had set up her new home in those modest lodgings, thinking to move on, but found herself trapped, instead. How Christopher's family had been moved elsewhere, and Jean had been too poor to follow, had been left behind in Adelaide. How on that Christmas in 1964 he had been stationed overseas, and Ruby had taken the children to her mother's, and Jean had been left all alone on Christmas, with neither friends nor family to shelter her. But more than that, she saw _Lucien._ Saw how after she departed he grew more and more despondent, drank more and more. She saw him throwing things, howling in the dead of night, breaking the piano, and she saw no one coming to save him. She saw how without her there to guide him he lost his way, grew combative and hopeless, how Mattie spread her wings and flew away to London, how Charlie went to become a detective in Melbourne, how Lucien, utterly alone, fell into darkness. She saw him shouting at Matthew, his tie askew and his eyes bloodshot, saw how he lost his job with the police, and how his practice failed, when he could not find a receptionist to stay more than a few months, and his patients grew mistrustful of him. How he began to take cases as a private detective, desperate for answers, and how with nothing to go home to he became even more reckless. How it all ended, on a bridge in Sydney, how they found his body half-decomposed in the mud months later.

"No!" Jean cried, her hands clutching at his stone, watching as he plummeted down, and down, watching as grim-faced policemen dragged his body up from the filth, as Matthew Lawson stood alone at Lucien's graveside while they lowered his body down, her heart breaking in her chest. She wrenched her eyes open, desperate to make this horror stop, and found Mrs. Blake looking on with sorrow in her eyes.

"No," she said again, tears spilling down her cheeks. "This can't be. It _can't."_

"You have a decision to make, Jean," Genevieve said then, and Jean's whole body began to tremble at the sound of that voice. It was soft, and sweet, still faintly accented from Mrs. Blake's French upbringing, but it was a voice Jean was never meant to hear at all, and it shocked her to her very core to hear it now. "You fear what will happen, should you take his hand. I cannot show you this, even I do not know what lies at the end of that path. But if you are not brave, if you do not choose him, this is what will be. It will be the end of him, and you will be left with nothing."

_It will be the end of him, and you will be left with nothing._

No life could remain in stasis forever, Jean knew. She feared losing the comfort of her present circumstances, but she could not live as his housekeeper and his friend for all the rest of their days, not when both their hearts were full of longing and questions, when both of them were aching for companionship, and love. No matter what choice she made, their situation must surely change, one day. Mrs. Blake had shown her one path; the other lay hidden in shadow, but surely, Jean thought, anything would be better than this. Better than Lucien living out his days in sorrow, never again finding joy, better than Jean withering away to nothing, with no one to care for, no reason to carry on.

"You want to love him, do you not?" Genevieve asked her gently.

"Yes," Jean breathed. She did not have to ponder her answer; she knew it already. She _wanted_ to love him, wanted him to love her, wanted his hands, his smile, his warmth beside her, wanted to believe that they could build a life together, that they could find happiness in one another. She had wanted that for months now, though she had been too afraid to admit it.

"He loves you already," Genevieve said, and Jean knew that was true, as well, for she had heard the words he spoke to his mother's stone, had seen the hope and the affection in his eyes, had marked well the way he reached for her, and listened to her, and treasured her, in every way that he could.

"Love is an unpredictable thing," Genevieve said. "You do not know what your love will bring you. But without it, you will find only grief."

Jean's shoulders began to shake with silent tears; she could not find the breath to answer, but Mrs. Blake did not push. Instead she only reached out, and laid a gentle hand on Jean's shoulders, and as she did all the world went dark, and Jean's mind went dark with it, her consciousness floating away, insubstantial as a wisp of smoke.


	5. Chapter 5

Jean woke with a gasp, her heart pounding madly in her chest. She could feel the tears still frozen on her cheeks, but when she wrenched her eyes open she found herself lying in her own bed, in her own bedroom. _Her_ room, the one she remembered, the one that sat at the top of the stairs, with its wide bay window overlooking the garden, its pale pink walls, her stockings hung over the mirror, her coverlet on the bed. This was _her_ room, no dream of the past or nightmare of the future, but hers, everything just as she had left it.

 _You know very well you never left at all,_ she told herself, giving her head a little shake as if to banish the remnants of her dream. It had been beautiful, and terrible, but it was, she was certain, no more than a dream. It could not have been anything other than a dream; ghosts did not exist, and even if they did, they could hardly go walking living people through their own memories, their own futures, and they certainly could not visit the lives of others, as she had done at Lucien's graveside. No, she told herself, it was only a dream. She had crawled beneath the blankets thinking of Christmases past and Christmases yet to come, and it was plain to see that those thoughts and her fondness for Dickens had simply run away with her.

It would have been nice, of course, to think that Lucien loved her, and nicer still to think that all her problems could be solved so easily, with nothing more than a dream. But life was not a dream, or a novella, or one of those films she loved so well; she still did not know how Lucien felt - for the words she'd heard him speak had been no more than a dream, she told herself, her own consciousness searching for reassurance, and creating it where there was none - and the vision of the future she'd seen, while terrible, had been no more than a manifestation of her own fears. Satisfied, then, that all was well, that she was simply tired, and overwrought, and above all was safe in her own bed, Jean checked the time, and upon finding it just after midnight she resolved herself to sleep.

She had no sooner laid her head down on the pillow, however, than she heard the sharp sound of snapping fingers, and jerked upright, her heart once more pounding double time. Genevieve Blake had snapped her fingers at Jean just like that in her dream; the sound was the very same. But though Jean warily cast her gaze around the room no phantom appeared, Lucien's mother or otherwise.

There were no ghosts lingering in her room, but there was something...out of place. Slowly, very slowly, Jean slipped her feet out from the covers, but as she made to stand, to go and investigate the strange item she'd spotted on her dressing table, she was waylaid by the sight of her own feet. Her own feet, dirty and grass-stained, and the legs of her pajama trousers, too, as if she had...as if she _had_ gone tromping through the graveyard barefoot.

Jean had not ever, in her life, gone sleepwalking, but she supposed she must have done. Perhaps she'd gone all the way out of the house, down into the garden-

That snapping sound again, more insistent this time, and for a second Jean could have sworn she saw Genevieve Blake's scowling face reflected back from her mirror. That was silly, of course it was, Jean told herself as she rose unsteadily to her feet. It had only been a troublesome dream, and a bit of sleepwalking. She'd go and look at the dressing table, and she'd see that all was well, and then she could sleep, and put this strange, never-ending night behind her. On silent feet she approached her dressing table, and came to a stop in front of it, staring down on it in wonder, for there, laid neatly between her jars of cosmetics and her jewelry box, was a bright, merry sprig of mistletoe.

Jean was absolutely, positively certain it had not been there when she'd gone to bed. They'd decorated the whole house weeks before, and she'd not bothered taking any greenery to her bedroom. Earlier in the night she'd sat on her low bench and stared into that mirror while she plucked the pins from her hair, while she carefully washed the makeup from her face, and there had been no mistletoe. Perhaps Lucien had brought it to her, she thought doubtfully, but she knew he was hardly likely to come sneaking into her room while she was sleeping, and even if he did attempt it she was too light a sleeper for him to come and go unnoticed.

Carefully she reached for the mistletoe, and as she lifted it up she discovered that the little bundle was tied together with a length of white silk ribbon, and on that ribbon was fasented a single pearl. White, and silk, and a pearl, same as Genevieve had worn when Jean saw her in her dream. The dream that had left dirt on her feet and mistletoe on her dressing table.

" _Oh, God,"_ Jean breathed.

It was no dream at all! It was real, it had been real, Genevieve, the visions - _oh, God,_ Jean realized with horror, if it was real, if she had seen those things, walked beside Genevieve Blake through the timeline of her own life, if it was _real_ , that meant that the vision she'd seen of her future without Lucien was real, too. That meant he'd gone to bed thinking she wanted no part of him, and never would. That meant she was racing towards a terrible, terrible end. Something must be done, she told herself; something must be done, to put a stop to it, to change course before it was too late, to save Lucien's life and her own in the process.

Something must be _done_ , and Genevieve Blake had, it seemed to Jean, left behind the perfect solution. A sprig of mistletoe on a warm Christmas Eve, and the house empty save for Lucien and Jean. One last chance, Jean realized, to make her choice, and change her fate.

Without a second thought she turned and raced out of her bedroom, rushing down the stairs with no robe to cover her thin pajamas, breathless and clutching her sprig of mistletoe. Her very being was suffused with a holy sort of purpose; she had been granted this chance, this one last chance, to take charge of her life, and make everything right, and she would not squander it. The moment she'd shared with Lucien in the parlor, standing beneath the mistletoe, his heart in his eyes, had been no accident, but had instead been his last attempt at wooing her. She had not known, then, what he was about, and she had lost that chance, but it was not too late. She was certain of that; it had only been a few hours since they'd parted ways at the foot of the stairs, and Jean carried mistletoe of her own in her hands, and surely, if he'd wanted to kiss her then he'd want to kiss her now, would understand when she came to him in the dead of the night, offering him that which she had so long denied him. He _must_ understand; she would make him understand.

If she paused long enough to consider her actions she knew she'd stop, and so as she reached Lucien's door she banged on it loudly before she had a chance to think better of it. From inside the room she heard a muffled curse, and the shuffling sound of feet, and _oh,_ her heart was racing so madly she feared it might well burst from her chest. Was she really going to do this? It was after midnight, for goodness sake, and they were all alone, and proper ladies did not behave this way, but _oh,_ she'd not been kissed for such a very long time - what if she mucked it all up? What if she was wrong about everything? What if she had, in fact, simply gone mad?

In the midst of her welter of confusing, terrible thoughts Lucien flung open the door, and for a moment Jean was left dumbfounded at the sight of him. He had been sleeping; he'd rinsed the cream from his hair and it was curling softly around his ears, and his heavy feet were bare on the floor. It was a warm night, and he wore only a pair of pajama trousers, slung low on his hips, his broad chest, his strong shoulders, his thick arms on full display, and seeing him like that, the little whorls of hair around his flat brown nipples, the angry red scar on his shoulder, the definition of each of his heavy muscles, every piece of him that had for so long been a mystery to Jean now suddenly revealed to her in all its glory, left her a bit light-headed.

"Jean?" he said, his brow furrowed, his voice gravelly from sleep and full of worry, "is everything all right?"

 _God help me,_ she thought, _but he is a beautiful man._

"I'm afraid I've made a terrible mistake, Lucien," she said. "And I want to make it right. Can we...could we perhaps...could I have a second chance, please?"

Her voice trembled as she spoke, but she forced each word out, pushing aside her doubts and her anxiety and the shame that licked up her spine at the thought of her turning up at his bedroom door in the dead of night, asking for a kiss. The moment she asked her question she lifted up the sprig of mistletoe for him to see, and a wide, warm smile spread across his face, and relief came washing over her in waves so strong and so fierce and her knees very nearly gave way beneath her. What a picture they made, half dressed and wrinkled, standing in his bedroom door in the dark of the night, Jean holding out the mistletoe to him with trembling hands, Lucien looking at her as if she were the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen. It was madness, but of the best kind; it was, she thought, the madness of love.

"I think," Lucien said very slowly, "that you can have as many chances as you need."

Carefully he reached for her and took the sprig of mistletoe from her hands. She thought he meant to toss it away, but he did no such thing; he simply lifted it up, held it over their heads, and Jean was smiling herself, now, thinking how she loved him, his gentle spirit, his eager heart. That was how it was meant to be, with mistletoe, hung above a doorway, the lovers caught beneath it, and while this was not the moment Lucien had planned, she rather felt that this was better, somehow. They had both made their choices, and found joy in the choosing.

"Good, then," she started to say, but her voice left her as he bowed his head, leaned slowly down towards her, and she found she didn't want to speak at all, not really. Instead she reached for his face, cradled his cheek in her hand, felt the scratch of his beard against her palm, and smiled all the wider as she lifted herself up onto her tiptoes, and felt his lips, at last, brush against her own. A short kiss, a sweet kiss, his hand holding the mistletoe above their heads, and when they parted from one another they were both grinning fit to burst.

"Merry Christmas, Jean," Lucien whispered.

Jean did not answer him with words; instead she flung her arms around his neck and once more pressed her lips hard to hers, hungry, now, hopeful, now, as she had not been for such a very long time. Lucien gasped into her kiss, caught off guard perhaps by her fervor, but when her tongue brushed against his lips he threw the mistletoe away and hauled her hard against him, and kissed her as if the world was ending. And in a way, perhaps it was, ending and beginning all at the same time.

Unseen by Jean and Lucien, who by this time were grasping at one another, hands learning the topography of bodies they had only previously dreamed about while still they kissed, laughing and relieved, a shadow lingered further down the corridor. A shadow dressed in white, and silk, and pearls, with a gentle smile upon her face.

" _Joyeux Noël, mon cher,"_ Genevieve Blake whispered, and then she vanished, never to be seen again. Her work was done; all was well, and all would be well.


End file.
